RICHMOND, KY – A former Eastern Kentucky University professor entered a plea deal Wednesday in his wife’s 2019 killing, stopping a murder trial that was set to begin next week.
Glenn Jackson did not plead guilty to the murder of his wife, Ella Jackson, 47. Instead, he entered an Alford plea — a legal maneuver that allows a defendant to acknowledge he would likely be found guilty at trial without actually admitting guilt. Jackson pleaded to a reduced manslaughter charge, while entering guilty pleas to abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.
He now faces a maximum of 14 years in prison. However, Jackson will likely receive credit for six years already served on house arrest — at the victim’s home — meaning he could be free in less than eight years.
Ella Jackson, also a professor at Eastern Kentucky University, was reported missing by her husband on October 22, 2019. He told authorities he had last seen her two days earlier. Investigators found it suspicious that she had left behind her cellphone and her 6-year-old son when she vanished.
As detectives looked into her disappearance, they discovered she had recently visited a domestic violence advocate. That finding prompted a search warrant for the home and vehicle, where investigators found evidence of foul play and a significant amount of Ella Jackson’s blood in the trunk of Glenn Jackson’s car.
Ella Jackson had also secretly recorded arguments with her husband and told friends that if anything ever happened to her, Glenn Jackson would be responsible.
Glenn Jackson was arrested in April 2020 and charged with murder and evidence tampering. A week later, investigators found Ella Jackson’s partial skeletal remains in a wooded area near property he owned. A medical examiner determined her death was a homicide but could not establish an exact cause, though she had a skull fracture.
Jason Hans, Ella Jackson’s ex-husband who has been raising her child since the arrest, called the Alford plea disturbing. “He will end up having done about 40 percent of his sentence sitting at his victim’s house, which is incredibly frustrating,” Hans told WLEX.
Jackson will continue to live in his victim’s home on house arrest until sentencing next month.
